Rescreenings planned for Expecting Goodness short films

Expecting Goodness Film Festival rescreening

The 2013 Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival, originally held on March 23, will be screened again Tuesday, April 16 in Spartanburg at The Showroom, and Tuesday, May 21 in Columbia at the Nickelodeon Theatre.

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Enthusiastic response has led to rescreenings that will take place April 16 in Spartanburg at The Showroom, and 5:30 p.m. May 21 in Columbia at the Nickelodeon Theatre.

One of the films, “Reagan in Kabul,” was the juried winner of Best Film as well as the Audience Favorite at the festival. It was made by director Julie Sexeny and writer John R. Saylor, a collaboration that Sexeny says “makes the film both of ours.”

The inaugural Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival, held at The Showroom in March 2012, featured seven short films based on stories from the Hub City Press collection “Expecting Goodness.” The Hub City Writers Project and Hub-Bub got the ball rolling last fall for the 2013 festival. The seven emerging and seven experienced filmmakers, along with the 2012 Best Film winner, were paired with one of their top three story choices. Sexeny and Saylor met for the first time at the launch party in October.

“I was very moved by his story,” Sexeny said of Saylor's original work, which won the S.C. Arts Commission Fiction Project in 2011. In fact, it was not Saylor who submitted the story to the festival but the S.C. Arts Commission. “I'm grateful that they did, and it's really exciting and gratifying to have been a part of all this,” Saylor said.

Sexeny is an assistant professor of film at Wofford, and Saylor is a professor of mechanical engineering at Clemson.

“Reagan in Kabul” is the story of a professor of engineering whose son dies in Afghanistan.

“The story is about loss and how that's a common experience,” Saylor said,

Their collaboration was such a success they're already planning the next one, and as the winners they've been invited back to do another film next year.

“I've already sent her a few of my stories,” Saylor said.

“That's really what the festival is about,” Sexeny said. “Making those connections.”

Winners

u “Remember, No Thinking”: story by David A. Wright (Travelers Rest), film by John Daniel Fisher (Lexington). Juried winner of Best Emerging Filmmaker

u “Reagan in Kabul”: story by John R. Saylor (Seneca), film by Julie Sexeny (Spartanburg). Juried winner of Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Editing; Voted Audience Favorite

u “Grace”: story, “Simon of the Desert” by Susan Levi Wallach (Columbia), film by Adam Gordon (Gaffney). Juried winner of Best Actor for Fred Knowles as Simon

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